Thomas Georges Borchardt (February 24, 1928 – January 18, 2026) was an American literary agent. He represented figures such as General Charles de Gaulle and Jane Fonda."Georges Borchardt, Inc. Literary Agency" Agency Website, retrieved January 16, 2011.
Early life Born in Berlin to Jewish parents on February 24, 1928, Borchardt was in France with his family when World War II broke out in 1939; his father died when Borchardt was eleven years old. He spent his teenage years hiding in plain sight, as an undocumented student in Aix-en-Provence, relying on strangers to protect him after his mother and most of his family perished in concentration camps. Borchardt emigrated to the US in 1947, settling in New York."Georges Borchardt Agent d'Influence" Frenchmorning.com, retrieved December 30, 2010.La mort de l’agent littéraire Georges Borchardt, passeur entre la France et les Etats-Unis, Le Monde, January 26, 2026.
Career Borchardt's first job in New York was as an assistant in a literary agency specializing in foreign writers."Agents & Editors: Q&A with Agent Georges Borchardt" Poets & Writers Magazine, September 1, 2009. In 1959, it was Borchardt who secured an American publisher for Elie Wiesel's Night, following rejection after rejection by publishers who labeled the memoir of Wiesel's internment in concentration camps too morbid for American readers. Night has sold more than six million copies in the United States alone."Interview with Elie Wiesel" Academy of Achievement, June 29, 1966.
He was responsible for the American publication of the first works by Samuel Beckett."France Honors Georges Borchardt" French Culture, Official Website of the French Embassy in New York, October 26, 2010. He also introduced to American readers major works by Roland Barthes, Pierre Bourdieu, Marguerite Duras, Frantz Fanon, Michel Foucault, Eugène Ionesco, Jacques Lacan, Alain Robbe-Grillet, Laurent de Brunhoff and Jean-Paul Sartre."Georges Borchardt, Inc. Literary Agency" Agency Website, retrieved January 16, 2011.
Borchardt lectured widely on publishing. He served on the board of International PEN and as president of the Association of Authors' Representatives."The Modern Word" retrieved January 16, 2011.
In 1967, Borchardt branched out on his own, establishing his New York-based literary agency, Georges Borchardt, Inc., with the assistance of his wife, Anne Bolton Borchardt. Their daughter, Valerie Borchardt, joined the agency in 1999."Georges Borchardt, Inc. Literary Agency" Agency Website, retrieved January 16, 2011.
The Borchardt agency represents many important authors, including Elie Wiesel, Ian McEwan, Jerome Charyn, Robert Coover, Jack Miles, and T. C. Boyle, who once described Borchardt as "the most wonderful man who ever lived on this earth"."Agents & Editors: Q&A with Agent Georges Borchardt" Poets & Writers Magazine, September 1, 2009. The agency also handles the literary legacy of the estates of Tennessee Williams, Hannah Arendt, John Gardner, Stanley Elkin and Aldous Huxley. Author page of gbagency.com.
Among the agency's more than 200 authors are eight Pulitzer Prize and five Nobel Prize winners.
When he was asked what he looked for in a piece of writing, he had replied, "I just want to fall in love with it...You don't know until you have found it, but when you find it, you know."
Death Borchardt died in Manhattan on January 18, 2026, at the age of 97.
Honors On October 25, 2010, Borchardt was awarded the insignia of Chevalier of the Legion of Honour, France's highest award."France Honors Georges Borchardt" French Culture, Official Website of the French Embassy in New York, October 26, 2010.
References
External links Finding aid to Georges Borchardt papers at Columbia University. Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Website of the Association of Authors' Representatives (AAR), of which Borchardt served as president
Bibliography http://www.pw.org/content/agents_editors_qampa_agent_georges_borchardt http://www.frenchculture.org/spip.php?article3789 http://www.thejewishweek.com/features/beginning/frances_honorable_agent http://gbagency.com/index.html http://gbagency.com/authors.html https://web.archive.org/web/20110622062951/http://www.themodernword.com/second_level.html http://frenchmorning.com/ny/2010/10/26/georges-borchardt-agent-dinfluence/ http://www.nyu.edu/about/news-publications/news/2007/10/03/in_conversation_renowned.html